


Nautilus

by ishka



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5574595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/pseuds/ishka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto travels to Sydney for work and ends up ever so slightly distracted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nautilus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhyTheHandbasket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyTheHandbasket/gifts).



> I do hope you enjoy, WhyTheHandbasket! I'm sorry my sense of humor is... well, about as mature as Rin's in this story.

* * *

 

 **_Going Down on the Down Under_ ** _(placeholder title; don’t have a coronary, Sousuke)_

_Written by: Makoto Tachibana_

_I just flew into Sydney from Tokyo- and boy are my arms tired (sousuke: let me have this one joke! please?! you never let me...)! That’s one I heard in a comedy club in America a few years ago and it never felt appropriate until this particular flight. An exceptionally exhausting ten hours, but that might be because they only offered me peanuts and peanut-based foods and nothing else (?! shouldn’t this be illegal somehow?) and I’m regrettably allergic. But there was wine!_

_Caloric intake for the day upon landing: negative. Drunk level: significant._

_(I was not strip searched this time, my more faithful readers might be relieved to hear. Friendly reminder: be careful where you pack your toothbrush if you’re going to the United States, especially when they’ve elevated themselves to THREAT LEVEL ORANGE! (double parentheses… sou is this in poor taste?))_

_So I walked gracefully (read: stumbled) from my terminal, made it through customs, found my bag, and even found a taxi! All three of these things going off without a hitch? My goodness, I thought, this might be the best trip I’ve ever had! And at that point I’d barely been landed for an hour._

* * *

 

 

Makoto sits back from his laptop and reaches for his coffee off to the side. 10 PM is a terrible time for coffee, but he’s still feeling off from his peanut-laden flight from _hell_ and may as well get started on this piece while he’s thinking about it. His editor is going to red line the entire thing anyway, so the head start will save him some grief on the other end. Sometimes he wonders why Sousuke doesn’t just write his articles instead for how much he rips them apart.

He pouts slightly, pinching his lips together as the shit-tastic complimentary hotel coffee beats its way down his esophagus, offending his tastebuds on a molecular level. He’ll have to find something better while he’s here. Three days of this sludge just won’t _do_.

And then, of course, his thigh is twitching, and Makoto adds up all the hours in his head that he’s been firmly planted on his butt today and thinks it’s a wonder he hasn’t keeled over from a blood clot by now. Unable to stomach the rest of the instant coffee, he pours it down the bathroom sink and armbars his takeout carton into the trashcan before finding his suitcase and digging out his gym clothes. Because running at night outside in a place you’ve never been to is a great idea, he knows, but he’s restless as all get out and would like to get some sleep at some point.

Makoto briefly wonders if he remembered to turn his phone on for international coverage, but figures if he forgot, Sousuke likely didn’t. He opens up the map to make sure he doesn’t lose his way. Sometimes he ends up running for a long time and spaces out, and needs it to backtrack in less familiar areas.

He stretches just outside of the hotel lobby and off to the side, sighing with contentedness already at the feel of decompression is just his back alone, and gets going. Forty minutes or so should be sufficient. He mentally checks out after ten.

And damn, maybe it’s just because his subconscious is still reeling from the factory waste coffee, but he runs right by _the best thing he’s ever smelled_ , probably, and his feet stop him at the end of a short bridge over an artificial creek. Makoto turns and sees it’s just some guy drinking from an insulated cup at the top of the aforementioned bridge, and Makoto’s a little embarrassed for being tripped up on nothing but he’s outgoing enough to want to know where that guy found such a fragrant, fresh cup of caffeine. Something so wonderful it carried over the stale summer night’s air and straight to his heart. That’s a smell he could use daily for the next week.

“Excuse me,” he greets in his best English, and the man jumps so violently he sloshes his beverage onto his hand.

“Ow! _Fuck_!” Japanese? Maybe. The man folds over slightly and shakes out his arm, hissing in discomfort and oh shit, if he needs a hospital, Makoto is in serious _trouble._

“I’m so sorry!” Makoto squeaks, slipping into a hover-handed, foot-to-foot _I don’t know what to do_ shuffle-panic. “Are you all right?! Please tell me you’re okay!”

The man uprights with a glare made of molten lava and Makoto thinks he should probably turn around and sprint back to the hotel right now and never look back-

But the glare softens to more of a warm ember, then lets off completely. He brings his hand to his mouth and nurses over it, eyeing Makoto suspiciously as he does it and gesturing outwards to silently ask Makoto what he needs.

“I’m _really_ sorry,” Makoto repeats. “That was so rude of me, are you-”

“Stop, I’m fine,” he answers in Japanese, removing his hand so Makoto can finally see all of him. “You lost?”

He’s tall, slightly shorter than Makoto though. Lean and probably has the most peculiar shade of red hair that Makoto’s ever seen. He’s like some human embodiment of a raging torch, and damned if he isn’t _gorgeous_. Ticks all of Makoto’s boxes and adds a few to the bottom he didn’t know he even _had_. If Makoto hadn’t just been responsible for the guy’s third degree burns, he’d already be asking for his number. And Japanese on top of that? What a sound for battered ears, what a sight for sore eyes.

And oops- he’s staring. The guy looks uncomfortable. Makoto’s bottom lip is firmly pulled between his teeth, he notices a little too late. Nothing about Makoto is undressed, but he still really needs to put it back in his pants as of a minute ago. “Not at all! I just uh, I smelled your coffee.”

He only blinks, face blank. Makoto is being about as smooth as a piece of sandpaper here. “I wanted to know where you got it? The hotel I’m in is trying to feed me poison and I’m here for a _week_. I can’t go that long without a good cup, and that’s the best coffee I think I’ve ever smelled.”

The man looks at his cup and back to Makoto, and seems to be _blushing_ now _?_ “I- I made it?”

“Oh.”

Sometimes Sousuke reads over his work and rewards Makoto with the most stalwart wall of silent disapproval Makoto’s ever known. This silence is worse than that, and has the added benefit of dumbstruck blushing on both ends. He needs to end this now before he starts willing the universe to strike him down in embarrassment.

“Well thanks anyway,” Makoto smiles. “Sorry again.”

“Um,” the man ekes, then clears his throat. “Vacation?” There’s an urgency to the guy’s voice Makoto wasn’t expecting, and he’s warmer all over to hear it. Can’t exactly place why, but hot strangers _wanting_ to talk to him might have something to do with it. Watching his eyelashes flutter open with the urgency, visible even in the night for how long they are, might have something else to do with it.

“Not exactly,” he answers. “Well, sort of? I’m a travel writer. Go to places, check them out, write about their appeal for a magazine to bolster the sale of plane tickets. I’m Makoto.” Maybe that was forward to lead with his first name, but sometimes the western customs confuse him, and on top of that he’s not sure what to use on a western-ly Japanese man who’s causing him to unravel into a puddle of stammers that he would really like to be on a first-name basis with as soon as possible.

“Wow, really? Uh, I’m Rin. Matsuoka.”

“Tachibana. But Makoto is fine.”

“Rin too. That sounds _so_ cool,” he gushes, eyes widening. So long...

Makoto laughs. “It can be.” It strikes him only then that it’s out of place for this person to be out so late, drinking coffee on a bridge by himself, and maybe he should try to ask? “Do you live here?”

Rin shrugs noncommittally. “Yeah, nearby. Shitty flat up the road.”

“Do you often make yourself coffee and go for walks near midnight?”

“Jeez,” Rin mutters, reaching for the back of his neck. “Yeah, now I do I guess.”

“Sorry,” Makoto says. “I’m prying.”

“You’re just astute. Anyway… it’s nothin’.” Of course it’s _something_ , but Makoto leaves it be. Even he knows he doesn’t have a lot of luck left to push. “So where you checkin’ out?”

Makoto hums in thought and crosses his arms. “Well I’m not too sure… I’ll stay in Sydney and probably use tomorrow to just wander around, I think, then visit anything that caught my eye the following days.”

Rin _grins_ in a sort of _I have an idea you can’t say ‘no’ to_ type way, and it’s blinding and out of nowhere for someone that’s gone from pissed off to blushing to slightly morose all in the span of a few minutes. He’s very _toothy_. _Gorgeous_ makes an invasive reappearance in Makoto’s head as well. “Well I certainly have nothing better to do this week. Want a guided tour?”

Spend a few days with this obvious runway model-actor-singer-likely small animal ambassador, _clearly_ out so late to avoid his doting band of paparazzi and screaming fangirls (what else could he be with a face like this)? Makoto’s been in worse situations. The only question is if he can go that long without making an ass of himself, because he’d really like to see an intimate table-for-two setting with this twenty-something ten-time running champ of the High-Set Cheekbones World Competition more than any of the tourist traps he’s about to be dragged through. No, he should politely suggest they try on something… intimate. He can’t let this guy go right away. “Depends. If you’re taking me to the Opera House, I’ll have to pass.”

Rin scoffs, and takes a sip of his previously weaponized coffee. “What sort of tour guide would I be to take you somewhere so boring? That’s like taking you to only see the Mona Lisa when there's an entire fucking Louvre to discover. Which, if you haven't seen the missy, is one-hundred percent unimpressively small, and must be viewed from half-way across France. Nah, we’ll go for something different.”

“I have seen it,” Makoto responds. “Nothing to write home about. Literally, in my case. I left it out of that article.”

“HA!” Rin laughs. “You’re funny.”

Makoto’s blushing now, for _sure_. No one genuinely laughs at his jokes, and no one half so beautiful or lovely as _Rin_. The comments he works the courage up to read on his online articles can all be summed up to: _Jokes so bad they’re funny... but really they’re not that funny. You tried._ Then Sousuke says: _I told you that wasn’t funny_.

Well does he have a story for his stick-in-the-mud editor now or _what_?

 

* * *

_It really takes a pair of eyes and ears on the ground to explain exactly what Sydney feels like, and that’s what I’m here to try and do for you. The buildings all compete for the sky, the sun reflects off the magnificent walls of glass so blinding hot… A worldly downtown, globally connected in every way… (sou, there’s a better way to say this. help me out?)_

_… Then you turn around and watch a few men in business suits walking along the beach with their surfboards in hand and it’s like some sort of alternate timeline where everything’s the same. Except you hit the beach after work in your financial review best._

_I decided to spend the first day of this lovely excursion just… walking. I know, I know, that isn’t all that interesting. But hear me out. Sydney is huge. Jumping around from place to place without appreciating the sounds and the sights and smells of the city itself that connects its hotspots is criminal. As you may know, I do this often. I like to put myself in the very_ culture _of my destinations. Any one of you can look up pictures and videos of the Opera House. But imagine instead…_

_The mingling of languages and accents where you feel like you’re in Istanbul on one street corner and have skipped into Paris on the block over. The rolling awe of all of the children, heads tilted so high to see the tops of the buildings I watched a few of them nearly topple over._

_The horns and the engines of the working Australian, rolling their eyes at the pockets of tourists, creating endless rivers of metal through all of Sydney’s arteries and the savvy few that know well enough to take the side streets for a quicker getaway._

_Last, but definitely not least, the salt on the air. The same salt of the sea you can taste in Japan, and strangely enough there’s something distinctly_ Pacific _about it. I’ve tasted the Atlantic too- it’s not the same. These two destinations a world apart figuratively and literally, and somehow they feel like they just… belong together._

* * *

 

“Are you _done_?” Rin sighs. “I finished my shishkabob like ten minutes ago.”

If anyone were to ask him exactly what he’s done with his day, Makoto wouldn’t have an answer. He’s walked with Rin, rested with Rin, window shopped and people watched and stole away glances to this _face_ that he can’t get out of his head. Even when Rin’s looking right at him, Makoto is daydreaming of him. He’s funny, he’s kind down to his very foundation even though he’s loud and crass. His individual atoms probably stop and say _good fuckin’ morning_ to each other every day. Makoto could speak in earnest about trace mineral deposits in the caves that line the Mediterranean and Rin would look at him and actively listen and ask questions like it was the most fascinating thing he’s _ever_ heard.

He’s breathless often, and not because they’re moving quickly down the streets.

“Mmm,” Makoto hums, then shuts his laptop and slides it back into his messenger bag. “Yup! Sometimes you have to get these thoughts out as they come to you or you sort of lose the tone you’re aiming for…”

“Can I see it?”

Makoto gasps. “Certainly not. If you’re nice I’ll give you ten-percent off the paywall for the online publication, though.”

Rin clicks his tongue and reaches across the table for one of Makoto’s fries. “I feel so used.”

He laughs. “When I’m done I’ll send it to you. It’s really all rough until my editor polishes it into something presentable.”

Rin frowns, a cute little pout. “I wanna see _your_ thoughts, not some stuck up guy with a dictionary degree.”

“Maybe.” He smiles apologetically. “So what’s next?”

Rin checks his watch, Makoto figures it’s late afternoon. “You like museums?”

“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Yeah they’re not too big here but I know of a cool one. If you like boats.”

Oh boy, and not particularly. “I like wide-open docked boats,” he answers.

Rin seems slightly perplexed over the stipulation before recovering. “Well, of course. There’s a submarine too we can explore.”

“No way,” Makoto immediately declines, crossing his forearms in front of himself. “Nope. Not me.”

Rin laughs and reaches forward to pull Makoto’s arms down. “Come on, I’ll fight off the monsters. You’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be punching _claustrophobia_?”

“Right in the fuckin’ face,” Rin agrees, and gives him that grin again. This one says _I dare you to trust me_.

Makoto wants to, and Makoto also doesn’t want to have a panic attack. An enclosed vessel on the water? He would need a horse tranquilizer to take him down if he were to freak out. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Rin says quietly- no, _tenderly-_ and moves a hand from Makoto’s wrist and over the tops of his fingers. Makoto’s stomach does a flip and he can’t look away from their hands, this bold _touch-_ and Rin could probably convince him to climb one of these skyscrapers with that soft expression he’s using. This gentle, private tone... “Don’t be a fuckin’ chicken.”

“Rin!” Makoto laughs, pulling his hands away.  

“In all seriousness,” Rin continues, “if you don’t want to see that there’s plenty of other things to see there.”

“I can do it,” Makoto finds himself saying, the spell of Rin’s grin clearly responsible for moving his mouth at all. “I trust you.”

That spectrum of emotion Rin’s so good at paging through ends with a wide-eyed, deep-set flush.

-

The entire Nautical Museum is quite nice, even the docked ships. There are displays about fish, and a number of art installations, and it’s an all around pleasant place to be. They save the submarine for last, and Makoto almost wants to bail. But he can _do_ this.

Even though it’s docked and mostly above the surface of the water, probably even welded to its spot on the bay of the museum, the submarine still _creaks_ like he hears in the movies with that hollow, metallic ratcheting and Makoto holds onto anything he can grab white-knuckled as he walks. Half the time he forgets to bring his hands with him, and can’t figure out why he isn’t _progressing_ until Rin looks back and gives a tug to the arm of his shirt to remind him that his hands can’t stay clamped while the rest of him walks forward.

It’s either an extremely large vessel or Makoto is stuck in some sort of time warp because they’ve definitely been there for _hours._ His shoulders have no room; the corridors are literally just as wide as he is.

“It’s been five minutes,” Rin corrects.

“Oh!”

They stop walking and step off into a little alcove to let anyone else by that’s behind them. “You sure you okay?”

“Definitely! Just a little nervous! It’s very cramped! I’m sorry I’m yelling!”

Rin’s face splits with a smile and he chuckles. “Just a lot nervous, you mean. It’s gonna go down a level at the end of this hall…”

“Is that so!”

He laughs again plops his palms on each of Makoto’s cheeks, giving a gentle squish. “Please stop yelling.”

“ _Sh_ orry!”

Rin drops his hands and rolls his eyes. “All right, down we go. Last chance.”

Makoto takes a deep breath, stretches his arms above his head and is happy for a little sense of open space. “Okay. Lead the way.”

If there’s a way into hell, this submarine ladder is it. It’s so _narrow_ , and the bottom is alight with a dim red glow. He climbs down so slowly that Rin climbs back up a few rungs to tug him impatiently by the hem of his pants, and when he’s at the bottom his knees barely feel like they still have the ability to lock straight.

“Spooky.”

“Y-yeah.”

“These are living cabins.”

“Oh my god.” As in, oh my god, people live on these things for months at a time.

Rin starts to walk and Makoto stays put. He makes it a few steps and turns back to grab Makoto by the hand, and starts to pull him along. “You committed, you got this.”

“Rin I really-” He’s about to tell him nevermind, we need to leave, but he trips and crashes to the grated floor. Rin turns to help him as Makoto tries to scramble to his feet and ends up knocking along a pipe soldered to the wall. It’s a lovely nervous freefall, and he’ll probably need to leave this out of his article, which is a funny thing to think about in the back of his mind while he flails backwards.

“Hey hey hey-!” Rin calls, pulling him up by his elbow. Makoto’s teetering on the edge, thinking about that horse tranquilizer, and Rin’s tugging him along elsewhere. He guides him into one of the cabins and sits him down on the bunk.

“Rin-”

“Look, there’s space in here. Look around.”

He pulls his eyes up and sees his shoulders aren’t knocking into anything, there space above his head, and Rin’s looking down at him with- amusement?

“It’s not funny,” Makoto sighs.

“I’m not laughing.”

“We should leave.”

He shakes his head and sits down next to him on the bunk. “It’s not a big deal. Everyone’s afraid of _something_.”

Makoto frowns. “Then don’t look so amused.”

“Actually, I was thinking of something sort of related is all. Have you ever heard of the nautilus?”

Makoto turns to face him as best he can. “Excuse me?”

“Cephalopod. Sort of weird looking.” He pauses to grin: _I can fix this._  And Makoto falls for it. Again. 

“N-no.”

“Oh, good. So it’s like, a dinosaur. Barely evolved at all in hundreds of millions of years. Real piece of work. It moves through the water via propulsion, right? But- and get this- it doesn’t really give a shit for being practical, obviously, since it don’t evolve. So when it moves, it propels through like, its face. Where its eyes are.”

He pauses again, and Makoto’s gears are turning to figure this story out and nothing’s coming of it. There’s a really _loud_ creak, and Makoto jumps, only to have his attention guided back to Rin with a pat on his knee.

“So by natural laws of physics- and get ready to laugh- when it moves, it moves _backwards_ , looking behind itself, and runs into shit. Constantly. Just whacks into rocks and whatever the fuck else. This solid, otherworldly fossil- older than dirt- can’t see where the fuck it’s goin’!” He snorts and devolves into a chuckle, and it’s really not that funny but this _laugh_ is. Rin finding it so _funny_ is.

“Can you imagine?! _Thonk. Thonk. ‘_ Oh, excuse me- no just a rock.’ _Thonk._ HA!”

Makoto covers his mouth and giggles into his palm as Rin’s chuckle get’s a little cackle-y, then a _lot_ cackle-y, then he snorts like some sort of hog with a cold and Makoto laughs so hard at just that alone sight that his stomach starts to cramp.

“ _Thonk!_ And, _and_ \- here’s the motherfuckin’ kicker: _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-_ a literary _classic-_ they name the submarine after this clumsy idiot! ‘Uh, excuse me Captain Nemo? Yeah, there’s a problem here: we can’t see _shit_!’”

Makoto doubles over and buries his face into Rin’s arm, elated in the back of his mind to only hear laughter echoing along the metal and not the creaking, happy to be able to move again in the slightly more open cabin, and thinking he could actually _stay here just like this_ in this metal nightmare. Wondering what sort of cosmic work is at play to throw Rin into his path on this trip, and what’s possessing him to fall this damn _hard_ that he’d even consider sitting here another moment.

“And the thing of it is, it survives just fine,” Rin says calmly after a few minutes of ebbing giggles. Makoto sits up with the change in tone to see Rin staring longingly at the ground. “Even if it doesn’t know where it’s going. It still makes it in the end. So sometimes- and this is my point- I’m afraid. Okay, I’m _terrified_ that I don’t know where I’m going. But if this dumb asshole can figure it out, I probably can. So you know, you’re not alone in being afraid of shit, and there’s your grand life metaphor for the day, with an added literary component featuring a submarine. All revealed inside of one, too. _Clever_ even, if I may compliment myself. And I hope you’re feeling better.” He smiles apologetically.

Makoto shakes his head. “I’d say you managed to punch claustrophobia right in it’s _fuckin’_ face after all. Out cold.”

Rin hits him lightly on the shoulder. “Oooh, spicy. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Don’t get used to it. Anyway, let’s leave before it wakes back up?”

“I’m thinking… dinner, yeah?”

Makoto nods, chest tight. A dinner for two like he dreamt of the night prior? And would he be brave enough to make a _move_? He’s trying to stand with the thought, knowing he has a lot of mental preparation ahead of him to deal with as move-making is decidedly not in his deck of social cards, but damn does he want to try, and Rin stands with him.

“Hey, Makoto.”

“Hm?”

Rin’s very toothy, sure, but his lips are soft, and Makoto learns that when he pulls him to a kiss without warning. And no, not exactly. That’s just a bit of trope Makoto’s always wanted to think of in real-time, not considering anything other than soft lips would be ideal. But hey, he’s allowed to be wrong. Because in reality Rin’s a little sea-chapped, and soft isn’t a word for him in the least. There are a few rough snags along his lips and they’re on the thinner side. All texture, all contact. But Makoto forgets about it anyway as soon as he meets his tongue.

He has to stop to breathe, and almost looks around on the ground for his lost voice.

“Figured waiting until dinner would be sort of cliché, and going by your sanctimonious ‘tude concerning the Opera House, you’re not a guy who’s into clichés. Bu- _u_ _t_ I’m going out on a limb here and assuming we’re oddly and maybe inexplicably into each other, and that waiting would’ve been pointless anyway.”

Smiling, Makoto smoothes his fingertips down one side of Rin’s face. “See I was so immediately smitten that I would’ve tried that _last_ night if I hadn’t injured you first.”

“ _S_ _mitten?_ ” He snorts. “Ah, such a gentleman. Come on, we gotta stop by the gift shop to commemorate our moving too fast.”

 

* * *

_I admit it. This is a bit different from my usual walk a day, see some things, tell you where to go type spiel. It’s not that Sydney is an exceptional place. I see a lot of influence from other cities here, it’s not otherworldly or anything. It’s just a city. Average, even, with the same sort of places for visitors to go, the same types of structurally sound buildings, the same nine-to-five feel of the working class. But I definitely have fallen for it in some way I can’t quite convey. As a writer, this frustrates me- not being able to find the words for something. But I’m beginning to believe the words just don’t exist for it._

_So instead of telling you what to feel, let me instead try to write about it in such a way that leaves you wanting more. I don’t want you to be satisfied at the end of this piece. I want you to feel like it’s unfinished, that I didn’t answer any of your questions. I want to be too personal, to the point where it’s useless to you. Maybe then, as a travel writer meant to entice you to go on vacations to these places, you might consider your own place that calls to you like Sydney’s called to me. If only to try and grasp that inexplicable feeling better than I’m able to, and experience it for yourself._

_Is this feeling just a stage in my life? Did I just happen to be here at the right time, in the right mood? I honestly can’t know this. I can’t really see where I’m going, either._

_I’ve learned that’s not a terrible thing._

_I talked about the smells and the sounds and the sights and I could go on about them forever. (sou- i will. i’ll blah blah in more setting-porn later but right now i’m on a roll) The roads here feel like home, and yet they’re unknown to me. The bars are all neon, their patrons illuminated from the inside out with vivacity and the sort of spirit you think about when you think of Australia. Pioneering, loud, and maybe a bit weird after once too many brawls with an eight-legged denizen of the Outback. If you want nightlife, it’s here and it’s strong and you’ll take the dancefloor before you can finish your karaoke song._

_You’ll find someone if you’re looking, guaranteed. They’ll sidle up to you, and find your waist. They’ll look right into your eyes and you’re somehow going to find your feet move in tandem with theirs without having to look down. The only salt on the air here comes from them- their heated skin moving along your own to the beat of the music with bass way too loud. Your chest is an organic subwoofer, and if you ever wanted to really feel someone else’s heartbeat- well you put your hand over the chest of your dance partner, and you let yourself get closer than you ever thought you could._

_Their pulse is uniquely theirs under your hand and you’re touching their soul. And yet their pulse is also everyone else’s. It carries the beat of the music, the life in the room, and thus is a chamber of the giant heart of the city with all of its arterial highways._

_And in the that way, maybe you only needed to experience one small part, to feel like you fell in love with the entire thing._

* * *

 

“Time-to-wake-up-Ma-ko-to.”

Makoto opens his eyes to a tragically ugly nautilus plush tickling his nose, and giggles raggedly over his dry throat. The smell he fell for the first night wafts past him next, helps him skip all the usual waking up routines, and draws him up to sit. Rin smiles and hands him a checkered mug. “I have this odd feeling that you like it sweet.”

“You’d be correct, not that I should be surprised at this point.” Rin looks pleased with himself, and scoots up to sit next to Makoto on the bed with his own mug (printed with seashells). And _oh_ does the smell match the taste and then some. He closes his eyes and savors the swallow; bitter chased by sugar over a bed of something Christmasy- nutmeg, maybe. All thick and tied up with a bow of no-nonsense cream.

Rin leans on him and sighs contentedly, but doesn’t speak. Morning spills through the window of his ‘shitty little flat’, and even the socks on his floor are glowing and golden. Makoto’s a bit hazy on how they ended up back here, but he certainly isn’t hazy on what they did after they got in, nor the near possession that drove his fingers across his keyboard in the early hours of the morning as Rin slept curled into his side.

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but even his toes might still be tingling and the post-romp high is still saturating his blood with endorphins however many hours later. It’s everything he has already not to turn and grab Rin for more. To take Rin without giving him the chance to set his coffee down, dragging his lips down a body that can be nothing less grandiose than a _temple_ that he’s worshiping _;_ all chiseled and immaculate and upkept and tended to by its owner with a near reverence, from his head to his toes.

Then he’s laughing, and nearly chokes on his coffee, and Rin who isn’t even privy to his thoughts is chuckling along with him anyway.

“You know I jokingly called my article _Going Down on the Down Under_ to mess with my editor, and now it’s not _entirely_ inaccurate.”

Rin snorts and draws out a _pfffft_. “We could add a few more euphemisms to it to _really_ make it accurate if you’d like.”

“He’d kill me. He’s all radio silence from what I sent him already which means he’s likely planning a method of corpse disposal.”

“Hard ass,” Rin mutters.

“That’s his job. He has a much more difficult time with another _eccentric_ writer of his though, I’m not his worst offender. I’ll probably survive.” He downs the rest of his coffee and is disappointed to see the bottom of the mug. “Aww.”

“I’ll make you more tomorrow,” Rin says turning to smile into his neck. “Gotta keep you coming back somehow.”

The first thoughts of _impermanence_ pick at his mind, and he pushes them away. “What’s today’s agenda?” he asks instead.

Rin hums. “How about just this?”

“I would if my livelihood wasn’t dependent on me doing _something_ while I’m here on the company’s dime.”

“Did you bring a swimsuit?”

“Of course, but it’s at the hotel.”

Rin nods against him. “Beach it is. Write all flowery about that and we’ll just lie on the sand and roll around in the surf. I’ll give you a few places to pretend you visited.” Rin pulls off of him and stands off the side of the bed, deciding for Makoto, and stalks off towards his closet.

He’s wearing a knee brace on his left leg, and not just a wrapped bandage for support, but something downright _industrial_ looking and Makoto tries to piece together if he’s been wearing it the entire time. “Knee?”

“Ah, yeah it’s a little busted,” Rin says dismissively. “Sort of rehabbing it right now. Thought I’d be all right for a day on my feet yesterday unsupported, but I’m sore today.”

“How’d you hurt it?”

He disappears into the closet and calls back. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait what do you _do_?” Makoto asks, and can’t help it, thinking back to Rin’s checked-out state on the bridge the first night, how he has _all_ week to take Makoto around, his fear of the unknown.

Rin’s head pops out of the closet adorned with a frown. “Aww man you couldn’t tell last night? Porn star. Drilled on my knees to the point of injury. A tragic, cautionary tale.”

Makoto frowns, not that it would matter if he was telling the truth, but he isn’t.

Rin sighs. “If you’re really not going to let it go, let’s get to the beach first, maybe? Better scenery for shitty stories.”

He finishes Rin’s coffee to shut himself up.

-

Rin watches him somberly and seated from the shore, and it hurts his heart. He gave an uneasy smile after walking with Makoto for twenty minutes and excused himself to rest.

Makoto wades up to his shins and no deeper through the tide, even in the December summer the chill of the water nips at him as he squats and picks over a few shell fragments and finds nothing worth taking. He wanders back over to Rin as he’s applying more sunblock to his shoulders. Without prompting, Makoto kneels behind him and gets his back.

He sighs deep, and his next words fall out on the exhale. “I’m a swimmer.” A pause. “World ranked, not half bad. It was a career, and then I hurt myself. So ah, that’s over now. For good.”

Makoto stops his hands on Rin’s back. “Rin…”

“Tried surgery and such and it keeps deteriorating. My options were to maybe make it another year and make it worse or to quit while I could still walk without a limp. The other started acting up a few weeks ago and I had to call it. It’s so _fucking_ stupid, you know? Bad knees have _nothing_ to do with swimming, just got shit genes. Ain’t that the fucking rub in this sport where I could’ve hurt _anything_? I can’t push myself with the exercise anymore that the team demands of me. I‘ve only made it worse since it started, thinking I could just what? Squat my way through it?” He laughs, but it’s dry and hollow.

“So there’s your answer, to probably everything you’ve been wondering since we met. I don’t know, sort of heavy to lead with, and I liked pretending for just a day that...” He trails and Makoto fills in the blanks for himself: that he’s okay, and that nothing’s unknown.

Makoto leans forward and kisses behind his ear in lieu of platitudes. Rin hums and leans into it. “I’ve always been going, going, _gone_ at lightspeed and when I was younger, I could do that. And my body finally caught up with my momentum and it couldn’t handle it. Wasn’t built to carry me how I’m asking it to. But swimming’s nearly all I’ve ever known, and I guess I never had anyone around to tell me to slow the fuck down. It’s always just been me, myself, and I since I moved here as a kid. So of course I pushed myself,” he sighs. “I should’ve told you I’m a bit uh, chipped, and not returnable. And newly unemployed. Not much of a catch.”

Makoto drops to a sit and wraps himself around Rin’s back, leaning his head between his shoulder blades. “And yet I’m so happy I met you,” Makoto nearly whispers.

Rin’s chest rumbles with a chuckle. “Not quite what I was expecting in response to all that.”

“None of it changes how I feel about you.”

For the first time since Makoto’s known him, Rin slips into shuttered silence, and only falls back against Makoto’s chest. He repositions his head to rest his chin on Rin’s shoulder. There’s nothing to really say about anything. Rin’s injury, his life, or whatever they are right now. What _does_ Makoto feel about him, anyway? Neither of them are stupid enough to ask that right now.

“I haven’t told anyone yet,” Rin says after a while. “Can barely get my name onto a resume template without falling apart. What do I do? Sales? I got _nothin’_ but a few medals that don’t mean shit to anyone but me. Porn don’t even sound so bad now, I was only half-joking. Except seriously, these _joints;_ I couldn’t even do that.”

Makoto squeezes him tighter around his chest. “Now that I think about it, let’s get food and fall back to plan A. Your bed is nice.”

 

* * *

_The water’s cold here, and I’m not drawn to it like I thought I would be._

_Makoto wants Rin’s body. He wants to fucspgrhppppppppppppppppppppppp_

* * *

 

“Rin,” Makoto laughs, fighting to keep the other’s hands off the keyboard.

Rin closes the laptop instead and pushes it down and off to the side of the bed. “Is it a _lie?_ Don’t break my heart here.”

“Of course not, but I _do_ need to finish this first.”

Rin rolls over and grabs Makoto’s phone off the nightstand, and holds it out to him. “I dunno, Mako. Dr. Dictionary isn’t impressed. I don’t think it matters.”

Makoto takes it and thumbs through to Sousuke’s most recent text that Rin has apparently intercepted while Makoto dozed after returning from the beach and lunch.

 _are you high? did you hit your head? no, even worse- are you_ _HARU now_?! _what the hell is this? call me_

“Oh no,” Makoto mumbles.

“See? Now forget about it.”

He opens up a new response text to apologize. “I can’t do that!”

Rin plucks the phone from his hand and turns the camera on. “Here, I got the _perfect_ answer for this guy.”

“ _Ri-in_ ,” Makoto whines. Grabbing, lunging, and failing- and _snap_ goes the camera.

“What? It’s not my dick or anything.”

Makoto sighs and gives up. “I hope it was a nice photo, at least.”

“It ain’t, you look crazy, but I look great… _and_ you have three seconds to stop me…”

“I won’t,” he groans.

“Sent.”

“He is _actually_ going to kill me. Spend time with me now while you can.”

Rin powers off the screen and flings it to the floor. He rolls over Makoto and straddles his hips, settling over his lap in a way that makes Makoto breathe a little quicker, and presses against him and if it weren’t for the words to fall so carelessly from Rin’s mouth immediately after, Makoto would get to go another few hours without thinking about what he should really be thinking about.

“Which, by the by, is how much longer? Forever?” He grins: _I dare you to miss your flight and never leave._

“Tomorrow’s my last full day,” Makoto says quietly, all that quickened air knocked from his lungs in a blink.

It’s as if Rin didn’t consider it, hasn’t even _thought_ about it, and maybe he hasn’t, by the way his face falls. Makoto wants to kiss his totally _unfair_ (because Makoto was always going to leave) shock away. “What?”

“I have to leave, Rin.”

“I mean I knew that… but...” He slides off to Makoto’s side, and lays his head on his chest. “I have to _stay_.”

And just the same as Rin, maybe Makoto hadn’t considered that. “...Why?” Why, when he has nothing here now?

“It’s all I know, all I’ve… I can’t,” he whispers, terror creeping into his voice. “I’m sorry.”

Everything comes to a slow and quiet stop.

 

* * *

_Lastly, if you’re traveling to Australia, Sydney in particular, make sure you spend time on the beach. What’s a visit to this destination without it? It’s defined by its coastline, after all, and the water at this time of year is warm and inviting._

_Try the surf while you’re at it, it’s exclusively Australia’s. There’s plenty of instruction, rentals, and the local surfers are great resources for some of the most useless advice you’ll ever hear._

_Of course, what I mean is, they speak in metaphors, and you’re better off paying for the lessons._

_I saw so much of the city, and still didn’t even come close to seeing it all. I wish I could’ve somehow brought a piece of it back with me, but I returned to Haneda empty handed. If you go and figure out a way to bring part of it back with you, let me in on the method?_

_Until the next trip, yours as always._

* * *

 

“This is the most uninspired thing I’ve ever read.”

“Sorry,” Makoto sighs into the receiver of his phone. “You only gave me a day to rewrite it.”

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you spent three days doing other than some guy you barely know and stream-of-consciousness vomiting into my inbox about jackfuckall, but you gotta pull it together for the sake of the deadline, Makoto. This is cold hard facts journalism with a little flair to sell plane tickets. The first thing was all flair. This is all facts. Where’s the happy medium?”

Makoto can’t bring himself to be upset with Sousuke’s callousness, because Sousuke just doesn’t _know_ , and he’s panicking that Makoto hasn’t done his job and rightfully so. He blew it. He’s tired, he’s heartbroken. Everything’s a blur. And it still isn’t an excuse.

“I’ll re-do it. Give me a few hours.”

“Makoto, what _happened_?” he asks softer. “You’re sort of freaking me out.”

He prepares to tell him everything, and abso-fucking-lutely _chokes_ instead. His throat closes up and his eyes burn like he’s allergic to his own self-inflicted misery. “I had the best coffee... I-I’ve ever _h-had_.” Three days late and catastrophically overdue, and he wasn’t aware he could even sob this loud.

“Oh, _jesus_ , Makoto, what the- I’m coming over, okay? You want take out?”

“ _No_ ,” he wails. “I’ll rewrite it, okay?”

“Ma-”

“I’m sorry, Sousuke,” he trembles, “I’ll fix it. Have a nice ni-”

“ _Wait_ a goddamned minute, would you?”

“Please, I know it’s bad!”

Sousuke sighs, Makoto hears some Sousuke-appropriate dramatic like _this is my life and I chose this_ off to the side, and returns even-toned. “You right-brained types are a fucking disaster, you know that? Okay. Remember when you went to Italy last year and came back all upset like this because you loved it there and couldn’t stay?”

“Y-yeah?”

“What did you do?”

“Wrote about it,” he sniffs.

“Got it out of your system, right? Gave it an ending. It was gross and really over the top. But anyway, _then_ what did you do?”

“Wrote the real article after you yelled at me for it,” he answers a little clearer, and with a small smile.

“So finish the original whateverthefuck you started, _then_ write the boring one for mass consumption.”

He holds his breath and breathes deep interchangeably for a solid minute or two to try and get himself under control. Sousuke waits. “You’re right.”

“Write out some weird theatrical closure to whatever it is you went through. And then send me both. And stop crying, it’s fucking weird.”

Makoto manages a laugh. “You _want_ to read the over the top one?”

“...Maybe,” he mumbles. “It wasn’t bad, it’s just not what we need.”

“Thanks, Sousuke.”

“Yeah. Now go away. My other favorite just submitted something and I see _wingding skulls_ in the file preview on the first line. It’s supposed to be about the best way to cut up the trickiest fruits, so I’m sort of concerned… Anyway, after all of this, you are _still_ not my problem child, isn’t that just fucking wild?”

“He only does it because you get all flustered, you know. And I’ll get you something soon to maintain my status,” he laughs.

A grunt, and the line goes dead. Makoto turns to his laptop, opens up _goingdown.doc,_ and knows what he wants to write. Italy ended. This _can’t_.

 

* * *

 

_I fell in love in Sydney, for no good reason. Now that I’m off the professional hook, I can say it. I’m so relieved I could cry, but I won’t (it’s weird, apparently :) )._

_There’s this... whole mess, for lack of a better word. Have I met him before? Have I seen him before? Has he only been a face I flipped by on TV past the sports channel and onto something mundane that stuck to my subconcious?_

_Or did I really meet someone entirely new from the ground up and give them my heart in three days?_

_No matter what thought chain I follow, it all ends up in the same place. Sometimes I feel like I was meant to meet Sousuke and even Haru who I still don’t know all_ that _well, yet somehow know_ very _well… and it’s the same feeling with you, Rin._

_There’s some part of my life that just shifted into place this week that I didn’t realize wasn’t quite snapped in all the way until you stomped all over it without looking and knocked it in on accident._

_And now I’m supposed to end it on my own terms for my own closure?_

_I’m not going to. I said I wanted my readers to be unfulfilled at the end, after all, and well- I’m my own most dedicated reader, aren’t I? And I’m not happy with this ending._

_So, Rin, let’s work something out._

_Love,_

_Makoto_

* * *

 

Silence.

He gets nothing in response to the entire thing. He submitted the real article, to Sousuke’s relief, and Sousuke didn’t even know what to say about the other one and told him it was terrible, molasses-bogged, _garbage_.

Makoto was happy he liked it.

He’s going to Barcelona next week for a few days. Cheap airfare promos for the dreary winter season. He half-jokingly tells Sousuke he’s suffering from a heart condition and shouldn’t fly, and Sousuke surprisingly gives him the chance to opt out and _offers himself_ in Makoto’s place instead? It can’t be company-legal, and thusly supremely uncomfortable for Rule Book Sousuke to offer him. That’s how Makoto knows he’s being… difficult.

“I’ll be okay,” he reassures. “I’ll book it. See ya.”

Because silence is as good of an answer he’s going to get, he concedes after a week, and it’s time to try and move on. Rin is clearly trying to as well. It isn’t for the best, but if they’re stuck where they are, what can they do? He only hopes Rin finds something that makes him happy after losing it all so suddenly.

Makoto just hates that he couldn’t at least be part of the answer.

He gets a text in the late afternoon smack in the middle of the week and out of nowhere, and opens it with shaking, adrenaline-flooded hands. He knows who it is before he even sees the name.

Maybe he’s saying goodbye.

But it’s a picture of the nautilus plush he left with Rin held up and out in front of Haneda’s baggage claim.

_lost my goddamn way since couldn’t see where i was going AS USUAL. think i finally made it though? gimme a- thonk- minute- ok- I’M GOOD wait- thonk_

Makoto laughs and covers his mouth while his eyes cloud over with another brand of tears, and his phone goes off again.

_… i need your address._

**Author's Note:**

> [For nautilus reference.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMFqV4SJLWg) Netflix US has a PBS doc called "Animal Misfits" that has the funniest damn "nautilus running into shit" montage I've ever seen and I probably watched it ten times in hooting hysterics. But I couldn't find that on YouTube.  
> [tumbler dot com](http://iskabee.tumblr.com)


End file.
